Ten
by Dr. Jekyl
Summary: The Doctor and Naomi Wildman have a lot in common, not least of which is sending their formative years on Voyager.


_This was originally written for the Ad Astra 'Growing Up Trekiverse' challenge but, well, to paraphrase Douglas Adams, I love the whooshing sound deadlines make as they fly by._

* * *

**One**

His first birthday is marked only by an oppressive feeling of depression about the ship – a feeling pervasive enough that even he notices. There are fights among the crew, several instances of binge-drinking and a host of minor injuries, all requiring his activation. He doesn't fully understand the cause, nor does he particularly desire to. He's just here to pick up the pieces, and hopefully be left alone.

**Two**

His second year is an eventful one. There are the usual feats of unappreciated medical genius, of course, feats that would have earned any other physician a stack of awards (and perhaps a nice posting at a prestigious teaching or research institution). More unexpectedly, though, there has been romance and music and, now, freedom, three things he didn't realise he was missing until they'd been thrust upon him.

He spends the second anniversary of his activation just sitting at a viewport, watching the stars flash by. Kes, alone, understands and offers silent company; the others leave him be, lost in their own reflections.

**Three**

Kes is gone. He thinks he is grieving - for real, this time. There is a void in his life he can't seem to fill, no matter how he tries. And he has tried: with work, with play, with taking their latest crewmember under his wing for endless hours... Kes was his best – for quite some time his only - and dearest friend, his advocate, his student and his mentor. And now she is gone.

For the second year running he sits and watches the stars. Without Kes, it is not the same.

**Four**

He is surprised, to say the least, when Naomi Wildman wishes him a happy birthday. She even uses her own rations to replicate him a little cake with four candles on it. He can't eat it, obviously, but is touched by the gesture all the same. No one has wished him a happy birthday before, not even Kes. When he asks her why, she says it's because she'd rather celebrate something happy than mope around pretending to be sorry that they weren't in the Alpha Quadrant. Voyager is her home.

They have a lot in common, he realises abruptly. For a start, he's not much older than she is.

It's in that spirit that, when she sticks her tongue out at him through layers of chocolate frosting, he responds in kind. Her squeal of surprised laughter is a better present than the cake.

**Five**

One some (slightly guilty) level, it's nice to know that he's not the only one for whom attempts at self-improvement occasionally backfire with embarrassing -and very public- consequences. He still gets the odd 'Captain' catcall from the crew, forcing himself to smile and laugh along even as he inwardly cringes.

On another, deeper level, he can't help but remember the last time he operated on the brain of the woman he'd had the exceedingly poor judgement to fall in love with. _One_ command from an enemy, and he'd been willing –happy- to permanently maim, even kill her. One poorly phrased order and he'd killed his own twin, someone even more of a victim of Ransom than he. The memories still sicken him.

He spends the rest of the night monitoring Seven's condition and trying not to dwell on the past. Life was simple, once.

**Six**

There is no 'year' here, and there are no real seasons; moreover, there are no meetings to attend, no drills and no duty rosters. Without familiar frames of reference his sense of time seems distorted, and his sixth birthday passes by almost without him realising it. Heightening his unease is his inability to practice medicine here, or to be a Starfleet Officer. They are two of the three things that most define him; without them does not feel like himself.

Worse, however: he is alone and afraid, afraid that he'll be found out, that he'll malfunction, that he'll be trapped down here forever.

**Seven**

He is seven, and he is in love. Madly. She is smart and talented and funny, beautiful, tolerant of his (few) foibles and seemingly drawn to his (many) peculiarities. She makes being stranded on this politically unstable and backwards planet bearable, even worthwhile. He finds himself trying to give back to her some of the ongoing delight she affords him, and looks up to the sky, to Voyager, less and less.

**Eight**

He worries a lot that he's not a good father for the boy. It's not just that he's an alien, artificial life form, but that, for all his mountains of data on such matters, he's never had a father himself in anything but the most nebulous sense. He's never been a son.

Sometimes it seems utterly ludicrous that he, a mere eight years old, is helping raise a child. At other times – today, carrying Jason on his shoulders home from the game - it seems the most perfect thing in the universe.

**Nine**

He spends his ninth birthday at his desk, writing reports and trying not to wish he were on the holodeck instead. The adjustment back has not been easy. For just over three years, for the first time in his life, he had been his own man, so to speak. It had been a revelation. He did what he wanted, when he wanted, and his only responsibilities were those he chose to take upon himself. Here, his life is once more constrained by the will and whim of others, those same others who'd ripped him away - without warning, no less - from the life he had built for himself and those he loved. He didn't even get to say goodbye.

He still cares for the Voyager crew, certainly, calls several of them 'friend' and knows they meant no harm -mean no harm- but resents it all the same, and chafes at the restrictions of Starfleet life.

**Ten**

Only Haley and Reg are genuine in their enthusiasm for wishing him a happy birthday; Lewis looks as though he wishes he were elsewhere. The Doctor uncharitably wishes he were too; having spent the day being examined, patronised to and finally ignored by the trio of court-appointed 'AI Specialists', he is not feeling disposed kindly to programmers of any stripe. That the two of them had started the day with an almighty row does not help.

There are presents to be unwrapped, each thoughtful in its own way. From Haley, two miraculous tickets to _Der Ring des Nibelungen_ at Beyreuth - a mere year hence!- and a refusal to say how she'd come by them. From Reg, a fat stack of material to be used in his case, including testimonials from every contactable member of the Voyager crew and an amicus curiae brief from Data.

When he's done unwrapping and enthusing over his bounty, he catches the other two shooting Lewis pointed looks, Lewis doing his best to ignore them. Noticing him noticing, the man sighs, and, with little fanfare, bestows upon him a third gift.

A name.

He tries it on for size, slowly. It's not one he would have chosen for himself, and when he remarks upon its origins, derived not from a healer or an artist but a god of war, he's treated to an eye-roll and an order to make his own meaning.

It's an order he thinks he can follow.

* * *

Some of the episodes referenced include: _Lifesigns_, _The Swarm_, _Future's End, the Gift Someone to Watch Over Me, Equinox, Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy, the Voyager Conspiracy, Lifeline_.


End file.
